Second Time is the Charm
by stormiscoming
Summary: It was fun, until it wasn't. Nate met a real ghost instead of a yo-kai.


**Second Time is the Charm**

* * *

A slow rattle woke Nate up from his sleep. It sounded like somebody trying to open the window from the outside and failing to. When Nate opened his eyes, the ruckus stopped.

Nate did not sit up. His bedroom was on the second floor, and there was no balcony. Not a thief, then.

"Whisper," he called. "Jibanyan?"

No answer.

"Jibanyan, is that you? Whisper?"

The rattle started again, this time louder. The curtain to his window shook unnaturally. Whisper was nowhere to be found, and so was Jibanyan. The latter came and went freely, so Nate was not worried, but Whisper was always with him. His absence felt like a missing limb.

Nate sat up. "Whisper, did you lock yourself outside?" he called out again. "You can't just, you know, fly through the wall?"

There was no reply this time, either.

It really could not be Whisper—the yo-kai was not the type to make such commotion. Unlike Jibanyan, Whisper was more careful about the effect of his actions in the living world. But if it was not him, then who?

There was a baseball bat under Nate's bed. With one hand and his upper body leaning out of the mattress, he grabbed it. It probably was just a yo-kai, like any other strange events that happened in his life, but extra caution would not hurt.

Nate sat on his heels and placed the bat beside his thigh. He lifted his wrist, targeting his window, and lit his yo-kai watch.

Nothing.

The unknown yo-kai must be outside, and for some reason it could not phase into the room. That was fine with Nate. In fact, if he could help it, he would rather have all yo-kai meeting outside of his house, away from his parents.

Yawning, Nate made his way to the window, baseball bat in his right hand. With the tip of it he slid the curtain open.

For one second Nate couldn't see anything. It was too dark outside, and the light from the yo-kai watch was reflected by the glass of the window, piercing his eyes. Above the glaring point of the light Nate could only see his own face, blurry and grey.

It had stopped rattling for some time. Yawning one more time, Nate trudged closer to the window and pressed his forehead to the glass to peer outside.

There was a pair of human eyes staring back at him.

Nate screamed. Reflexively he swung his bat, but it his desk instead, sweeping off his robot models. Nate lost his grip and his bat fell to the floor with a clatter.

Now that the light from the yo-kai watch was pointed elsewhere, the view outside his window was clear.

It was a child, probably his age. It was the most humanoid yo-kai Nate had ever seen—its appearance took that of a boy who had just been hit by something extremely heavy. One side of its face was mushed, eyeball almost falling out of its socket. Underneath all that blood, Nate thought he could see a sliver of bone.

It was crying.

Its little hands knocked on the glass, pushing and shaking, but the window did not budge. There was a distant scratchy sound that Nate realized came from the yo-kai's nails trying to slid into the tight gap between the frame of the window and the wall. When it failed to pry the window open, it cried harder.

Out of habit Nate's hand flew to his pocket, feeling for his medals. They were not there—he was in his pajamas, not in his daily clothes. In his panic he forgot that he always put his medals in his desk's drawer before he went to sleep.

Nate was actually standing right by the desk, but it already took all of his power just to keep upright, and if he had to do anything else, it felt like he would faint.

The child-like creature had stopped trying to break into the bedroom. Its hands—missing two and a half fingers—covered its face now, and its shoulder quivered like little earthquake. Its weep could be heard in the silence, a lilting, haunting voice that wavered from its wrecking sobs.

Nate took that moment to calm himself down. It was easier when he could not see the innards of a skull. Gaze not leaving the creature, Nate stretched his arm sluggishly towards his desk.

The instant Nate's fingertips touched the knob of his drawer, the creature dropped its hands, baring its face. It smiled.

Suddenly it was difficult to breathe. Nate opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. His knees gave.

The door to his room opened.

"Nate!"

His mom scrambled to him, hugging him tightly, while his dad took the baseball bat from the floor and looked around.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

The creature was still there. It tilted its head almost curiously.

"Nate? Nate, honey, you're shaking."

Nate looked up to his mom. Whisper materialized behind her, dragging Jibanyan by the tail. He was frowning.

"I- I thought I saw something outside the window," Nate croaked.

"Outside?" his dad repeated. He walked to the window and squinted.

The creature, to Nate's relief, had disappeared.

"There's nothing outside. You're on the second floor. You're safe, Nathan."

"I-" Nate glanced at Whisper. Jibanyan was flailing and kicking, trying to escape his grasp. "I- it must be a nightmare."

"And what a nightmare it must be," his mom said.

They tucked Nate to bed once he had regained his color back. Whisper kept quiet until his parents left the room.

"Are you okay, Nate?"

Nate sat, somehow furious. Whisper looked taken aback by the animosity of Nate's expression.

"Where were you, Whisper?"

"Jibanyan was trying to steal your mom's mars bar, so I had to stop him." Whisper yanked one of Jibanyan's ears, and the cat yo-kai yelped. "What happened?"

All anger left Nate at Whisper's words, like air leaving a deflating balloon.

"There was a ghost," Nate said.

"A ghost? Are you sure?"

Nate crossed his arms. "I'm pretty sure."

"A yo-kai, you mean?"

"No," Nate answered heatedly. "A ghost. I've never seen a yo-kai like that. It looked- it did not look like you or Jibanyan or any yo-kai, for that matter. It looked human, Whisper."

"Like Tattletell? She looked like a grandma," Whisper said.

Nate shook his head. "No. A human, a human child. Real human child, only he's dead, that's what. He was covered in blood all over, his left eye bulged out of his skull, in fact, all of his left side was kinda…" Nate wiggled his fingers, trying to get his point across. "Like two-face from batman, only it's all over his body, get it?"

Whisper did not look like he got it, but he checked his encyclopedia nonetheless. He showed Nate some monsters that resembled human, but none of them even remotely looked like the creature he had seen.

"Let's see if tomorrow it comes back," Whisper suggested. "You need to go to sleep. You have school tomorrow."

"I don't want it to come back," Nate said before he lost consciousness.

* * *

They waited for a couple of days. At nighttime Nate curled up with Jibanyan, who only put up with the cuddles under the promise of mars bars. Nate slept pitifully. The creature's face was printed on the back of his eyelids, and he always dreamed of the same thing over and over again: of looking down to the busy street from a balcony of a tall, tall building, and jumping down. He usually woke up before he hit the concrete, but when he did not the rush of air and pain _pain_ _ **pain**_ had felt real _ **,**_ until Whisper shook him awake.

Whisper barely rested. He watched Nate all nights, concerned. Nate knew the yo-kai thought the creature was part of a vivid nightmare, but for once Whisper kept his opinion mum. He slept in the day, when Nate was in class or with his friends.

Jibanyan left after a week, stifled by Nate's actions.

"He's a cat," Whisper shrugged. "He'll come back."

True to his words, Jibanyan appeared in his bedroom again the day after, begging for treats, though he sneaked out again when it was time for bed. Nate slept better now that he kept his medals under the pillow and the memory was not as fresh. He had also started questioning himself. Maybe it _was_ a nightmare.

Several nights later, Whisper gave up.

"I need to rest," he said. "Total rest. I'll probably pop in and out of existence. Is that okay, Nate?"

"Sure," Nate replied.

* * *

Nate was woken up by the rattle of his window, like somebody trying to open it from the outside and failing. Whisper was nowhere to be found. Nate sat up, his hand inching to his medals.

This time, he was ready.

* * *

 **Note** : Commissioned and cross-posted to the yo-kai watch forum over (/)forums(/)forums(/)fanfiction.18 - remove the brackets. I'm currently the only person posting stuffs at the fanfiction forum, so please hang out with me and cross-posted your fics over there too! 3


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